Remediating Your Online Reputation

Remediating Your Online Reputation

There are times when your employees will do things they regret that damage your company. Maybe you had an office party and everyone got a little drunk and started using social media and saying the wrong things. Maybe someone in your company was unclear on your policies and blurted out to someone about a new product that was being kept under wraps. There will always be the risk that someone at your company will do irreparable harm to your company and its reputation.
This happens all the time, epically since people have access to social media and other forms of communication at all times. They carry their cell phones with them and may snap unflattering pictures at a company gala or they may post videos of indiscretions to social media and not realize that the public is able to see these things. We’re going to discuss how to handle these kinds of situations, as they are becoming more and more likely for companies of any size.
Cleaning up a Stained Online Reputation
Once something occurs that hurts your reputation, you need to look for ways to manage the problem. You have to assume that what’s been posted won’t just go away. If your company has little online presence, it could be hard to deal with the problem effectively. Anything you say online at that point can spread quickly, and you have to be careful about how you manage the situation.
What has happened can stain your reputation for a long time. Any time someone looks up your company’s name or your name in particular, they may see this mark against you, and it can haunt you for the rest of your life.
If your online reputation is in disarray, then you need to try to repair the damage that has been done. If the problem was confined to a single instance, then you may be able to take control and attack that single source in an effective manner.
To begin online reputation remediation, you first need to identify the source, assess the problem and determine how much damage was done. You may not be able to fix the problem by just taking your name off of a Facebook photo or removing a comment. However, you can contact websites that are reposting the information and ask them to remove it. Some of those sites might accede to your wishes and take the material down. Others will be harder to convince. If the incident has spread across the web, just because you got rid of one link, that doesn’t mean another one hasn’t sprung up from it elsewhere.
Getting Your Reputation Back
Your next move should be to start building a public profile of yourself on major social media sites- Twitter, Instagram, Google, Facebook, etc. You can create blogs and be proactive with your posts to ensure that you appear professional and that your knowledge and your experience are shining through. You are essentially trying to overshadow the negative publicity with something positive. If you keep at it, you may be able to get rid of that stain on your reputation. This is how online reputation remediation works.
The issue here is that this approach can take time, and it may not very effective if the story has gone viral. If the story is picked up by sites that Google trusts, then it may never go away. It may take years then to remove this stain from your record.
You can fight this sort of problem, though. By using professional online reputation management services, remediation can be far more effective. When you have done what you can on your own, it is time to turn to the professionals for help. There are situations only they can rescue your reputation from.